not very well, actually. if/when corps failed entire populations (and sometimes civilizations along with 'em) died out or scattered. sometimes they went to war with their more plentiful neighbors and took THEIR food. so do you want a stable society that can feed itself? then it pays to help farmers out through the lean years, as well as maintaining diversity in your food supply.

Nonsense. farm subsidies protect farmers financially, it doesn't prevent droughts or disease or do anything at all to provide food.

If farmers want crop insurance, fine. Let them pay for it themselves.

And when food prices spike to unbelievably high levels, what do you think happens next?

You liberal dumbasses created this welfare state, so you don't have any room to complain when those evil bastards who grow our food game that idiotic system for all it's worth. Now get your asses back to work and keep those tax dollars rolling in to the red states, dumbasses.

I don't understand why farmers are held in such esteem, merely because they inherited land. Even a small farm is quite valuable, as far as land prices go. Surely the idea that you have some sort of "Right to Farm" (if your father was a farmer) runs counter to the idea of equality, opportunity, and independence.

Family farms are, at best, break-even enterprises. Instead of propping them up with subsidies, they should go broke *naturally*, so that the land and resources they use inefficiently can be consolidated into corporate farms of more profitable scale.

WhoopAssWayne:You liberal dumbasses created this welfare state, so you don't have any room to complain when those evil bastards who grow our food game that idiotic system for all it's worth. Now get your asses back to work and keep those tax dollars rolling in to the red states, dumbasses.

nah, we'll just jack taxes on the elite 1% and change laws to make it expensive for corporation to hoard billions of dollars in cash reserves. its amazing how much money we'd have if we stopped blowing the f*ck outta deserts on the other side of the world.

Mrtraveler01:Mr. Carpenter: nmemkha: Mr. Carpenter: nmemkha: Drive through any farm or dairy area. Do these jackholes in McMansions look like their are suffering?

1/10 (at least you made me laugh.)

I grew up in dairy country. What about you?

I grew up in Kirksville MO, IA MO border and still live here. I'd ask where you live now but I'm pretty sure it's under a bridge.

I went to Truman. I know all too well what Kirksville looks like.

It's weird to see someone from Kirksville on Fark...small world. Now we can talk about Paglai's and Pancake City.

So all my friends love Pagliai's but I think the sauce tastes like crap and the pizza is horribly overpriced. About the only thing they have going for them are Ronza's which aren't even Ronza's even more. I guess they got sued and have to call them Palonzas now. And yeah it's such a small place weird to see a fellow from Kville on Fark lol.

douchebag/hater:Subby? Do you have car insurance? Do you consider yourself self reliant?

You do?

Then geabod.

AverageAmericanGuy:Subby, are you complaining about the government program working as it's designed to? Or are you just making a big deal about people taking advantage of the government programs?

Do you want to help farmers or not? If yes, then your complaints are weird and incongruous to your position. If no, then aren't you on the wrong side of the aisle?

I think subby's point is that it's a myth that farmers are the self-reliant, bootstrappy, rugged individualists that conservatives make them out to be. "Real Americans" as Sarah Palin put it. Those who complain the loudest about welfare and government aid are the ones who receive it most.

Mr. Carpenter:About the only thing they have going for them are Ronza's which aren't even Ronza's even more. I guess they got sued and have to call them Palonzas now.

That's too funny. I always ordered from them, but that's because the only other options were Pizza Hut and Papa John's and they didn't deliver to campus as late as Pagliai's did. It was pretty average stuff.

But I could never call it a Palonza. That's like calling the Sears Tower the Willis Tower.

c4rr0tc4k3:Any sort of crop failure means increased food prices. When disasters happen the government steps in and makes sure those food prices wont skyrocket. People require fod you know, the government is not farking stupid like its citizens.

Except that they don't do that. Crop insurance protects farmers, not consumers.

If the government wanted to do that it would subsidize food in times of shortage. this is nothing but a hand out to people with a strong lobby.

drjekel_mrhyde:Just don't you call it WELFARE, because only a inner city black and illegal alien thing

Bingo. I'm from a bootstrappy Real American town where they lined up for farking milesfor a Sarah Palin book signing. They hate welfare and the gubbmint. They hate welfare. They hate the 47%. The city isbased on government money from the AEC->ERDA->DOE to the military. Outside town it's all farm subsidies, crop insurance and water projects.

Try telling them they're welfare queens suckling off the government teat and see how far you get.

And somewhere in the circular logic pattern of relying on the government for necessities is the tax burden that gets spread among the entire population.

And since any disruption of the delicate system can have dire consequences, more gov't regulation gets piled on existing regulations which validates the need for the Commerce Clause which prevents you from being self-sufficient because you grew too much wheat or corn and prices fluctuated.

It's a complex problem that sure-as-shootin' ain't getting solved in a FARK thread.

Snarfangel:Then why not just give the money directly to the poor? That way, they could spend it on the food they want to eat, rather than just what had the best subsidies.

Right.. because when FEMA gave people who were displaced by Katrina $2000 cash cards so they could buy food without a lot of bureaucratic overhead, those people totally used the money to buy necessities, not designer purses and expensive shoes.

Not all poor people make optimal purchasing decisions. Some pay for cigarettes, cell phones, and cable before they pay for rent, food, or medicine. Some do that deliberately, then expect the government to provide them with the important things. Those people place a never-ending load on programs intended to help people with legitimate needs get through a rough patch.

WTR the original subject, let's make a deal: the govenment can stop giving farmers crop subsidies if it stops taxing them at something like $1200/acre for arable land.. regardless of whether that land produces crops or not.

I'm guessing "ultralib" is the default setting to you. In your mind there's no such thing as a nomal lib, or a slightly left-of-center lib, or any lib but ultralib. You have learned well from Bill O'Reilly et ilk.

vpb:Nonsense. farm subsidies protect farmers financially, it doesn't prevent droughts or disease or do anything at all to provide food.

If farmers want crop insurance, fine. Let them pay for it themselves.

Farmers wouldn't farm if they didn't have a financial incentive. I get the feeling that you are fairly clueless about what goes on behind the scenes as far as how your food gets to your plate.

And they do pay for crop insurance, and in most years they don't collect a penny from it. Those that do usually have zero govt. dollars involved. The govt. only gets involved when the amount paid out goes over a certain overall amount and that only happens in situations where there's a widespread problem like massive flooding (farms have to be on or near flood plains, that's how the rich dirt got there in the first place) or drought.

I live in an agricultural area and there are plenty of farms with McMansions on them.And they all grow corn and soybean which get processed into high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil. The rest produce chicken feed for Perdue.The chemicals they put on their fields end up in the Chesapeake Bay where they kill the crabs and oysters and everything else.There is nothing noble about it. It's all about profits.

yingtong:Snarfangel:Then why not just give the money directly to the poor? That way, they could spend it on the food they want to eat, rather than just what had the best subsidies.

Right.. because when FEMA gave people who were displaced by Katrina $2000 cash cards so they could buy food without a lot of bureaucratic overhead, those people totally used the money to buy necessities, not designer purses and expensive shoes.

well....when we bailed out AIG the guys who tanked the company gave themselves pay raises and bonuses, along with spa treatments and 1st class flights around the country. As I recall, most GOP types around here either defended AIG's actions or got very quiet for a while. I see both situations as identical - we gave the rich folks free money and they behaved badly. But nobody seemed to really care. so why not give poor people free money? I mean we can't really complain if they behave badly with it. we certainly didn't complain when AIG abused their free money, right?

Radioactive Ass:Agricultural "Welfare" is actually welfare for us all, especially the poor. Without it the farmers would have to raise their prices to cover their losses in the inevitable bad years. The first people who will start to starve would be the poorest amongst us that wouldn't be able to afford even the basic staples of nutrition.

Total nonsense. Crop insurance protects farmers not consumers. Farmers charge what the market will bear now. They aren't going to take less than the market rate for their crops in good years because they got some crop insurance.

Well, considering a tax refund is money that you already paid to the government, you might want to find a better image. But I see your point, insurance is totally the same thing as welfare. Premiums, how do they work?

TomD9938:Weaver95: so you're ok with regulating the f*ck outta wall street and bankers?

Yeah. They already are.

When you say "the f*ck outta" though, it sounds punitive.

Regulation =/= destruction.

If we're already regulating wall street and regulation is destruction then...how do you explain this? wall street has had a VERY good year so far, and bonuses are up 15%. I can only think of two things: either regulation ISN'T destruction...or that we're not actually regulating wall street. the facts do not support your viewpoint.

not that it matters. you said that if we (the public) fund something then we have the right to control it. so lets control wall street. YOU said we can, right? so lets control wall street and level the playing field for the rest of us.

You're arguing over crumbs while Big Agribusiness gets the lions share of the Farming Welfare.It's just one more way to divide Americans, that way they can't get it together to protest in cities and state capitols.Nothing succeeds like suspicion.

And when food prices spike to unbelievably high levels, what do you think happens next?

Nothing, because they only spike to unbearable levels in the imagination of people who don't have a basic grasp of economics, or who like the false dilemma fallacy.

Even if farmers were passing the subsidies they receive on to consumers, and it cost nothing to administer the program, and none of the subsidies were going for things like animal feed or ethanol, all subsidies would do is transfer the cost from our grocery bills to our tax bills.

TomD9938:CruJones: And McMansions on farmland? That doesn't even make sense.

You could write on one hand what I know about agriculture, but I've seen this as well in my travels on the backroads of the upper Midwest.

I'm guessing it's corn money, mostly.

Again, no. By definition a McMansion is an oversized house, built on land too small for it, and typically in neighborhoods not designed for large multi-story homes.

A big house on a farm is just a big house. And as someone who has many friends in cotton and soybean and corn farming, that's the exception. But again, think how cheap it is to build a large house in the Mississippi delta. It probably costs approximately the same as a 1,000 sq ft loft in Chicago. And a lot less than a two story home in the Chicago suburbs. It's relative.

vpb:Total nonsense. Crop insurance protects farmers not consumers. Farmers charge what the market will bear now. They aren't going to take less than the market rate for their crops in good years because they got some crop insurance.

Crop insurance does nothing to help the poor at all.

If farmers go under and stop producing food then the remaining farmers who are lucky enough to not be as affected by whatever the problems are will jack up their prices (supply and demand). The poor would be the first ones to starve in that situation. See the depression, the dust bowl and soup kitchen\bread lines stretching for blocks in some cities for what can happen as a result.

That's why we have farm subsidies, to manage farming as an overall system instead of a haphazard system where the farmers are completely on their own. The subsidies are an incentive for farmers to join that system by smoothing out their revenue stream. If not they would be jacking up prices even in plentiful years, in the past (with no subsidies) farmers have actually destroyed produce to artificially boost the price on what remained. With subsidies the prices that they can charge are restricted by the govt. and they have to follow a master plan on managing farming across the country.

I think subby's point is that it's a myth that farmers are the self-reliant, bootstrappy, rugged individualists that conservatives make them out to be. "Real Americans" as Sarah Palin put it. Those who complain the loudest about welfare and government aid are the ones who receive it most.

Of course it is. Farm subsidies are one of the reasons red states mostly get more federal spending than they pay in taxes.

"Ah, so THIS government entitlement program is ok...Hypocrisy! Just another example of how big business is not actually for a free market. What they really want is to socialize the risk of business while keeping the profits private. "

Also that question is kind of silly because food subsidies have existed in one form another all the back to antiquity. Unless you want to go as far back as Catalhoyuk in which case buddy I don't think ANYBODY quite knows.

Yes, and if we got rid of farm subsidies we could subsidize food for the poor and in times of shortage at a much lower price than handing out money to farmers.

vpb:all subsidies would do is transfer the cost from our grocery bills to our tax bills.

And that's exactly what they are intended to do. The rich pay more in taxes in real dollars than the poor do. The rich would also be the last people affected by huge price increases on food, the poor would be the first ones to starve. With lower prices of food for everyone then you won't have starving people, rich or poor.